'You shall die for that blow.'

'That is better,' said Duroc.

'My sabre!' cried the other. 'I will not keep you waiting, I promise
you!' and he hurried from the room.

I have said that there was a second door covered with a curtain. Hardly
had the Baron vanished when there ran from behind it a woman, young and
beautiful. So swiftly and noiselessly did she move that she was between
us in an instant, and it was only the shaking curtains which told us
whence she had come.

'I have seen it all,' she cried. 'Oh, sir, you have carried yourself
splendidly.' She stooped to my companion's hand, and kissed it again and
again ere he could disengage it from her grasp.

'Nay, madame, why should you kiss my hand?' he cried.

'Because it is the hand which struck him on his vile, lying mouth.
Because it may be the hand which will avenge my mother. I am his
step-daughter. The woman whose heart he broke was my mother. I loathe
him, I fear him. Ah, there is his step!' In an instant she had vanished
as suddenly as she had come. A moment later, the Baron entered with a
drawn sword in his hand, and the fellow who had admitted us at his
heels.

'This is my secretary,' said he. 'He will be my friend in this affair.
But we shall need more elbow-room than we can find here. Perhaps you